Lyrics of Sorrow
is a crossover between Castlevania and the Lyrical Nanoha series.
Sometime after Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Soma Cruz has started working with Genya Arikado's Special Investigations organization. His most recent assignment sends him to Uminari City, where a giant tree suddenly appeared in the middle of town before it was just as suddenly blown away. His investigations lead him to a struggle between young children fighting with strange magic over alien artifacts of terrifying power. Unfortunately, what could have simply been a heartwarming (if pyrotechnic) tale of friendship gets somewhat derailed when dark forces also take notice of the Jewel Seeds, notably Death himself, who seeks to use them to turn Soma back to the Darkness.
Completed, with the sequel: Lyrics of Sorrow: Assault, already underway. Naturally, it deals with the events of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's. As the Wolkenritter begin attacking magic-users around the world, others again get involved for their own ends, including Death, a fairy with Belkan loyalties, and even Zobek gets involved.
Tropes:
- Adaptational Badass: While Zafira is still not the strongest of the Wolkenritter (that honor still goes to Signum), he still went from being weak enough that Arf was able to go toe to toe with him without any upgrades in the original anime to being strong enough to defeat Fate and Arf needing magical gauntlets from Soma's crew just to barely keep up with him in this fic.
- A Father to His Men: Soma is very kind towards the souls within him. He also doesn't get upset if they aren't able to do something he asks them to; since they fear failing him in any way, his attitude is something that they are thankful for.
- Bag of Spilling: Averted. Soma kept the souls he gained in Dawn this time around.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind: Soma fights Dracula to take back his mind while Julius and Chrono battle his body. He then has to take on Chaos once more.
- Berserk Button: While Vita still has her "damage her hat" button, she's also shown to have the "insult Hayate" button as Fate learns the hard way when she mistakenly believed her master (she didn't know that Hayate was the current master of the Book of Darkness at the time) to be a heartless manipulator.
- Brutal Honesty: When Julius speaks, he does not sugarcoat his words. This riles Nanoha several times throughout the first story.
- Canon Immigrant: The Takamachi family's involvement with the supernatural and the Tsukimura family's status as vampires from Triangle Heart 3: Sweet Songs Forever are in the story.
- Cerebus Syndrome: From Nanoha's standpoint, this happens once Death shows up, though it arguably started when Soma started his investigation.
- Collapsing Lair: Lampshaded by the protagonists while the Garden of Time starts to crumble around them.Yoko: This is all your fault, Soma! Every time I go with you to some super-villain's lair, we end up running for our lives as it collapses around us! You're cursed, I tell you!
- Darker and Edgier: Much darker than the original two Nanoha series with a lot of blood and death (including Death) and the involvement of much more frightening foes than the original work.
- Death by Adaptation: While Precia's fate was left ambiguous in the anime, Soma made sure she would be Killed Off for Real in Lyrics of Sorrow.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
- In the first fic, Nanoha, who was still inexperienced, was able to take down Death with her Starlight Breaker.
- Played for Drama in the past: America's nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed Susano'o!
- Dug Too Deep: Fifty years ago, the TSAB discovered Earth; a planet linked to several stable pocket dimensions. Excitedly, the explorer team touched down and opened up the biggest one. It turned out to be Hell. The lone surviving mage was discovered by the future Admiral Graham.
- Enemy Mine: From Fate's standpoint, as long as she and Nanoha are teaming up against Death. Nanoha, on the other hand, never sees her as an enemy.
- Gilligan Cut: At one point in Assault, the heroes wonder what the Wolkenritter are up to and think they must be discussing their next move in their lair which they expect to be some kind of dark evil place. Cut to the Wolkenritter in the bright and cheery residence of Hayate.
- Happily Adopted: Fate, naturally, though the fact that we mentioned it should clue you that it wasn't by Lindy (of course she wanted to, but was beaten to the punch).
- Here There Be Dragons: Inverted. The TSAB went out of their way to make Non-Administered World #97 sound as boring as possible in official records, to keep anyone from even thinking of going there.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: Both Signum and Soma during their second fight, which the latter lampshades. It takes a few moments for Signum to figure out what he's talking about.
- I Have Many Names: Shinigami, the Grim Reaper, the Angel of Dark and Light, the Champion of the Night, Cutter of the Final String..."Myself. I prefer to simply be called Death."
- I Just Want to Be Special: Arisa starts to feel this, just a little bit, in Assault when she realizes that her two friends are a Magical Girl and a Vampire.
- Manipulative Bastard: Death, as usual. He blackmails Arf into collecting Jewel Seeds for him and has his own agenda regarding the Book of Darkness incident.
- Mythology Gag: A flashback places Jonathan and Charlotte At the final battle against Dracula in 1999.
- Before allying with Nanoha, Yoko seals the Jewel Seeds Soma finds using the soul forging technique from Dawn of Sorrow.
- No-Sell: The Vampire Killer vs. The Jewel Seeds' chaotic energies. No contest.
- Our Vampires Are Different: While the Tsukimura family is made of vampires, they're of a different type of vampire than the ones usually seen in the Castlevania games. Among other things, they don't have problems with sunlight.
- Out of Focus: Played with, while Fate is still a major character in Assault, she's also one of the only main characters not to have any "main opponent" since Soma is the one dealing with Signum. To elaborate, Yoko fights Shamal, Arf still goes after Zafira, Nanoha has two in form of Vita and Death and even Chrono and Yuuno have opponents to deal with in the form of two OCs who join the Wolkenritter.
- Scars Are Forever: Death can inflict wounds that, even if healed, will leave a permanent scar that not even the best medicine that the TSAB could offer can remove. While it won't have any physical repercussions, it can have some psychological ones. Poor Nanoha.
- Sequel Hook: As one probably expects by now, the first story ends with Hayate and the Book of Darkness. An epilogue features Alicia and Leon Belmont at the edge of the Afterlife. Precia, however, has yet to pass through.
- Squee: Suzuka goes into total fangirl-mode when she finds out that Alucard was in her house. Her reaction unnerves her friends, and she's all too happy to explain things to them.
- Took a Level in Badass: Soma has learned how to combine his souls for even more powerful and varied effects.
- Tranquil Fury: Julius exhibits this trope when Nanoha angrily accuses him of not caring about Soma's supposed death. The evenness of his words and the force of his stare stuns Nanoha into complete silence.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: Alucard pulls a fast one on Lindy, to keep the TSAB from arresting Fate.
